


The Loaded Die

by Barkour



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 21:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Loki cheats, but Sif always wins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loaded Die

**Author's Note:**

> A short, silly thing to make up for the last thing I wrote. This is set some time before the main events of the first Thor movie. Sadly, it is only barely T-rated (and that might be stretching it).

"Tell me truly," said Sif as Loki took his winnings. "You used some trick."

"What, I?" Loki fluttered one of the coins across his fingers; it vanished around his thumb. Discreetly he pocketed the coin with his other hand beneath the table and with it, the loaded die. He went on: "I'm much too fond of my neck to ever cheat you."

Sif eyed him, though the thrice emptied goblet of wine beside her left her in too charitable a mood to call his bluff in her usual uncivilized manner. Loki had drunk his own share of wine, though neither of them had bested Thor, who was snoring gently in his chair with his head pillowed on the table. The room was small, made smaller by the three of them crowded about the one little table on three little chairs.

"You should value your head," said Sif. She smiled then, her mouth rounding, and the corners of her eyes pinched just so. "Little use you'd be without it."

The room was dim, lit only by the one lantern in the corner. The light had gone soft, and in the sleepy shadows it left, Sif was strange to him. She looked a puzzle; she always did. Her dark hair had fallen across her shoulder, and she'd changed out her chestplate for a simple woven shirt before they'd all three of them sat down for wine and games.

"Another game?" she suggested. She reached for her goblet and, finding it empty, frowned down at it. Her lower lip pushed out, and her eyelashes covered her dark eyes. There was a tendon in her wrist that showed as she held the goblet up, a strong tendon, thick.

He felt very muzzy in the head, as if he were underwater and had let out all the air he had.

"No," said Loki, "I've played my fill, not," he added, "that I don't enjoy laying waste to your dice."

"I've won three hands and you two," Sif protested, her eyes crinkling again; she was as he so rarely saw her. "I'd say it's your hands have suffered and not mine. Don't you wish to reclaim your honor?"

"I've already claimed most of your coin, and that's honor enough for me."

She was merry now, and pink in the face, and still his head was filled with fluff.

"O-ho! Is it coin with which you buy your honor?"

"I've little else besides," he said, "as you've said often before."

Sif laughed, uncaring for Thor where he slept on, uncaring for Sif's laughter. She set her goblet down and her callused fingers left its swell.

"Have I said that? Then it must be true."

"The lady Sif tells no lies," said Loki with a light bow of the head.

"And the prince Loki tells no truths," said Sif. Her smile had turned arch and her brow archer still. "So I know that you have cheated, and I would that you show better regard for my honor."

He tapped his finger on the table's edge and considered her: Sif of the lean throat and the muscled shoulders, with her dark hair all atumble. 

"Was it your honor or mine that I did poorly by?"

"Mine," she declared, raising her chin. A length of her hair stuck to her cheek. "You cheat my honor when you don't take me seriously."

"I always take you seriously, Sif," said Loki. Her name got caught on his tongue; it hitched out. He schooled his face and thought, he should not have drunk so much wine.

Her eyes were dark as night, and he would not look from them. Perhaps she hadn't heard the slip. Perhaps Sif didn't know it for what it was. She'd a small mole to the right of her nose and he was wanting, suddenly, to look to it.

"Another game," said Sif.

"The hour's late," he demurred, "and my brother's neck will be hurting if I don't send him to bed soon."

"Send him to bed then," Sif said, not once looking to Thor, "and then play me another game."

His mouth was dry, his tongue's edge dulled. He should not have matched her drink for drink, not when he so studiously avoided wine. She had smiled her thin, wolfish challenge at him over her goblet, and Loki had taken her up on it without a word. The ghost of the wolf yet clung to her mouth. The teeth were what he feared, and the impulse to bare his throat to her.

"I'd rather not," he said. "Thor does hate to be woken early."

Sif folded her arms along the edge of the table and leaned against them. Her forearm pushed into her small chest; the cotton of her shirt creased. The wolf turned at the corner of her lips. He should never have made the mistake of thinking Sif tamed.

"Then roll your dice, Loki. Let's see how they fall."

The loaded die, he left in his pocket. With a show of shaking out his wrists, he cast the unloaded die for which he'd swapped the loaded out of his sleeve and into his downturned palm. The other die he picked out from his winnings. Sif looked smokily up at him and smiled deeper still.

Loki tossed the dice once in his hand and then let them spill. One knocked about on several sides before settling awkwardly on a five, and the other fell to the floor when Sif swept it aside and stood up and leaned across the table. Her hand grasped his collar tightly; the starched fabric bit at his throat. He could not help but to rise from his seat with Sif pulling so at him and her lips so firm against his own.

Her lips undulated: she caught him. How could he bear to close his eyes? Without blinking he watched her, how her thick eyelashes shivered on her cheeks, how the muscle beneath her cheekbone fluttered, how neatly that mole by her nose would fit under his thumb. Sif caressed his upper lip, ever too thin, and she withdrew for breath.

"Could you not bear to look at me?" he asked, curious.

Her lashes rose. The swell of her lips was pinker now; the lower curved out. Her fingers loosened in his shirt collar, only to slide up his throat to cradle his jaw. He could hardly think. A sort of flickering came into his chest.

"Do you always stare?" she countered.

"Would you rather I look at Thor?"

"I'd think you tired of staring at me," said Sif, and Loki knew he'd been caught.

"When have I ever?"

Sif's nose wrinkled; she was pleased, and pleasure made her brighter, fiercer, reddened her face so.

"Tired of staring at me?" she teased.

He swallowed and tried for a jest: "How could I ever?"

"I've my fill of staring," said Sif, and she kissed him again with her rough fingers tracing the line of his jaw and, on the other side, the curve of his face. The edge of the table bit into his thighs, and Sif swore softly into his mouth when he reached to cup her strong shoulder and pull her nearer.

"This place is ill-suited for this game," Loki said, half-breathless.

Sif's mouth pinched: annoyance, though not at Loki. What a peculiar thing to witness. Her hair was half-wild where he'd made a pass at combing it with his fingertips.

"Not so if Thor had slept elsewhere," she said.

"You would begrudge my brother his bed?" Loki clicked his tongue at her.

"I begrudge you your humor," Sif retorted. Her hand fell again to his collar. "I would that you take me seriously."

"How can I not with your hand at my neck?"

"I'll have your tongue for that," Sif muttered. 

She'd his mouth, anyway, but he'd her hair in his hands and her teeth on his lip, and if it were not for the table, well. The table was certainly in the way, as was Thor, sprawled so happily upon it as he slept and dreamed of whatever things he dreamed. Loki had dreams enough of his own in his fingers now; he traced with his thumb the curve of her left breast, hidden only by her thin shirt, and then, venturing inland, he stroked the tightening nipple. Sif made a growling noise and then she gave him her tongue.

It was only when Sif made to pull Loki up onto the table and several of the coins went clinging and clattering to the floor that they broke apart again. His hand was nearly full up her shirt, his fingertips just grazing the soft skin at the underside of her breast, and she'd her teeth full out. She bit his lip and sucked it deep. Dizziness swarmed him; the heat in his head and his chest warred. The wine had not been watered, and he'd drunk so much of it.

"Think of another place," said Sif, her breath fast. She nuzzled the corner of his mouth.

"I can think of many," he offered, though none came to mind, not with Sif filling all the world and threatening to eat him whole. He pressed another kiss, incisive rather than ravishing; then she bit him again and he cracked his knee on the table.

"Think of one," she said, fully breathless now.

He stroked the side of her nose with the back of one finger; the knuckle of the next finger over brushed that teasing mole. Loki looked at her and, because he could only seem to think of his room, he said,

"Which one?"

Sif huffed and rolled her eyes and said, "Any but here will do," and she grabbed his hand as if she meant never to let go. Well, he supposed she'd won after all. He was sure something would come to him, and if it didn't, surely it would come to Sif. She'd a head for wine, and he wanted her teeth again.

They left Thor to his work.


End file.
